


crown and anchor

by irnan



Series: interesting landings [2]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, cast of thousands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-21
Updated: 2012-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce gets pickpocketed. Everything goes downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crown and anchor

**Author's Note:**

> aka The One Where Everyone Has Feelings About The Serum. Backstory dreamt up in "run to the sea", title from Joni Mitchell's "blue", takes place sometime in the year between the end of "spectrum" and Peggy time-travelling in "and don't you dare be late". 
> 
> ...Apparently this is a series now.

****

Bruce is buying groceries when the woman in the red silk blouse bumps into him. It's totally unnecessary: Tony has people who have people who have people who buy groceries for all of them. Similarly, none of them actually need to cook, because Tony has people who'll do that for them as well. According to Coulson there are team bonding trust–building reasons for the Avengers to do their own cooking, even if they're not very good at it or alternately just don't like to. According to Bruce the reason they cook themselves and eat together for two meals out of three is because it feels more like a family when they do, but this is an opinion he has never expressed aloud and certainly not to Coulson because he's half–convinced Fury bugs the guy every time he leaves SHIELD HQ and listens in to all their conversations.

It's none of Fury's damn business how close the Avengers may or may not be.

Anyway, Bruce is grocery shopping because that's a soothingly normal thing to do and it's his turn to cook this week. He turns around the end of an aisle and bends to grab a box of cereal off the bottom shelf there and when he straightens again he's just about walking into a blonde woman in a red silk blouse.

"Oh! I'm sorry."

"Not at all," she says, flashing a quick smile. "I was not looking."

He thinks that's a German accent, but it could be anywhere in Europe that's east of France for all he knows. "Neither was I..."

They slip past each other, smiling, and wander on through the store. It's not till he gets home that he realises his access card for the Tower is missing.

 

*********

 

"You're irresponsible," says Tony cheerfully when he hands Bruce a new one. "Don't get that snitched. It's OK, the old one's blocked, they won't be able to use it. You've made Tasha and Clint anxious, they're trawling security vids."

Bruce feels pretty bad about this – part guilt, part apprehension, because hello, super–assassin ninjas being made anxious? – so he raids the fridge for chocolate cake – and where the hell that had come from he has no idea – and brings them both a slice.

"Thanks," says Nat, hardly looking up.

"You're welcome," says Bruce, parking himself on the arm of Clint's chair. "You know, I don't know why she didn't just take my wallet."

He's determined, until someone proves different, to believe she was just a pickpocket. Anything else is unfair and bad karma and the universe messing with him.

Anything else means he's gotten way, way too comfortable in the Tower; has let his guard down far too much.

"Neither do we," says Clint around a mouthful of cake. "Hence, the watching of the videos."

"You make it sound so epic," says Nat.

"It _is_ epic," says Clint. "Epic boredom. This is the sort of thing the Spanish Inquisition oughta use as a torture instrument."

"Well, nobody will expect it," says Bruce. The other two grin appreciatively. "There she is, by the way."

Again the first thing you notice about her is the red blouse – hmm, maybe that's deliberate. Bruce has a damn good memory, but he remembers the blouse better than her features. She has – well, had – a basket with a couple pints of milk in it, a loaf of bread, a couple other things. And she comes round the corner behind Bruce, and yes, now he's watching from this angle he sees the way her hand flashed out, slipping towards his jacket pocket. They apologise, move on. Nat hits pause, brings up another camera view, farther away but you can just about see the thief's profile and:

"Well now," says Natasha. "Hel– _lo_ , Ksenia."

Bruce shifts to look down at Clint, who glances back at him, loaded cake fork hovering above his plate, both eyebrows raised.

"Bad news?" asks Clint.

Natasha smiles. It's not pretty. "Put the Tower on lockdown, or whatever it is Tony has planned for times like this. Ask Steve to meet me on my floor?"

 

*********

 

James is reading in their own living room – the spaces the Avengers think of as the 'common areas' of the Tower technically belong to Tony and Pepper alone – with the windows open. Distantly Natasha can hear the rush of traffic far below. She doesn't often catch him reading; like Thor his favourite pastimes tend to include physical exertion, or at least being outside. It's probably a book Steve gave him.

He looks up when she comes in, cocky smile and stubble. "Talia darling," he drawls. "How's Bruce's pickpocket?"

Tasha grins. He officially owes her dinner and a show for this. And when she says a show she doesn't mean he'll have to take her to one. "Not a pickpocket."

He licks his lips, still grinning. "Damn." His fingers slide on the cover of the book, which – _yeah_. Tasha savours the curl of anticipation in her stomach, far preferring to think about that than what she's actually come upstairs to tell him. But James being James, the next thing he says is, "Actually though, that was quick?"

"It's Ksenia."

James closes the book, lays it aside. "Damn again." He's very still now, concentrated.

Tasha shrugs. "She was never as good as she liked to think she was."

"She'll be good enough to take out –"

"Almost any of our kids," says Tasha. "Yes. Steve's coming up now – oh."

"Here," he says, slipping through the open door. "Is this about Bruce's pickpocket?"

"She's one of us," she explains.

One of us: serum–enhanced, surviving test subject; a Successful. Natasha is not quite sure when she began thinking of Steve as one of us in that way, or even when she decided there was an _us_ to think about. In the Red Rooms they had not been pitted against each other – they were all valuable resources – but they had been kept apart. Friendships? Don't be foolish. Only the Winter Soldier had ever met all ten of them before the collapse of the USSR, the dismantling of those structures that had kept them hidden and protected for so long. Here in this room are the three best Successfuls of twelve: most skilled, most cunning, most dangerous. And only one of them was trained in the Red Rooms.

Ksenia's going down, and going down hard. Tasha officially has the _best life ever_.

Steve purses his lips. "On a scale of one to ten, how worried am I?"

"About fighting her, maybe a five. About finding out who's employing her..."

"She's a merc?"

"I was," says Nat. "It makes sense and it pays a lot. I can't think of any other reason she'd have to come after us."

"OK. Did she target Bruce specifically or was he just convenient because he was the one doing the grocery shopping?"

Natasha pauses. "Hmm. I don't think she'd be rash enough to do the former."

"I wouldn't rule it out," says James. "He's one of us too."

True enough, in a manner of speaking. "That's what I meant," says Natasha dryly.

"Yeah, but like you said, Ksenia's always thought she was better than she actually was."

"Ouch," says Steve, amused.

James shakes his head – he's terse, thoughtful. "They all did. Running missions against people who couldn't possibly have matched 'em, physically. Made 'em arrogant, made 'em, occasionally, dumb."

Steve's eyes slide to Natasha. She grins at him. "I had another kind of advantage," she says solemnly.

"Yeah," says Steve, grinning back. "Me too."

James glares at them both.

 

*********

 

The first thing Bruce asks when they're all gathered in Tony's kitchen is "Who's Ksenia?"

"One of us," Tasha repeats.

"Why me?" Bruce is tense, bordering on openly angry. He's doing that thing Tasha remembers from their first meeting, where he holds his hands in front of his chest and rubs them together; it's an anxious, submissive gesture on the surface. Underneath, he's giving his hands something to do so they don't clench, don't move too quick, don't _smash_.

She doesn't like it.

"Because you were convenient," Steve answers for her.

"Are you sure?"

He shrugs. "No. But we've got no actual reason to think different. We're just all afraid of the same things."

Bruce opens his mouth again, but doesn't seem to know what he wants to say. He's standing at the table; Tony's sprawled in the seat at his side. Right now he pulls a leg up and rests his ankle on the other thigh, which has his knee brushing the side of Bruce's leg. Bruce notices the touch, face turning down, eyes flickering. Tony looks up at him, veneer of arrogance stretched over anger as deep as Bruce's own. You can always tell when Tony's furious because he doesn't talk as much, sentences becoming clipped and hard, whole body tight with it.

Nothing, thinks Tasha, makes Tony truly angry except this: threats to them, to any of them.

Bruce sits down. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in the chair, wary but quiet.

"Dangerous," says Clint.

"Very," says Tasha. _To you_.

"In the Tower already."

"Bet both my guns on it."

He stands up. "Security cameras."

"Jarvis," Tony says. "Run facial recognition from that profile pic, get me locations, I want to know when she entered the Tower, where, who she's spoken to, everything."

"Running facial recognition now, sir."

"Jarvis, thermal sensors," Clint says. "You got them?"

"Only on the R&D floors, Agent Barton."

Tasha shifts. "Vents," she says to him.

Clint nods.

Jarvis says, "There are three which are both large enough to hold a human being of average size and allow access to this floor of the Tower. Access points are" – the Tower appears in holograph over the table, focus changing to the penthouse at the top, access points lighting up – "here, here and here."

"That's one each," says James.

"Hey," says Clint, mildly indignant.

"Not this time," says Steve flatly.

James looks at him, eyes sliding left but no other part of his face moving. "Steve," he says.

"Are you really going to pretend she doesn't know we're here?"

"Boys," says Tasha. "Just so we're clear. _I'm_ the only one who gets to make this personal."

"That's not what I mean," says Steve.

"No?"

He deflates a little. "Maybe kinda. It's not..."

"It's not about _Erskine_ ," says James.

Tasha bites her lip. Why, oh why couldn't they have thrashed this out in her and James' rooms before? Steve's shoulders are set, stubborn as a mule.

"He was –"

"He was a lot of things," snaps James. "Now he's dead. And Steve, if I wanted to start a fight – which I don't right now you idiot kid so shut up – but if I did I'd be taking this opportunity to point out that if he hadn't been too much of a dumb stubborn bastard to tell anyone else the details of his research – hell, just to give the fucking stuff to Howard – we would not be having this conversation."

"No," Steve retorts, bordering on yelling, that tight angry voice Natasha remembers from early fights with Tony, "you'd be smashed to pieces on a cliffside in the Alps, I'd've _drowned_ and Tasha would be dying of old age in some comfortable apartment in Moscow."

"That is missing –"

"I thought," says Thor, irritably, "that the point of this meeting was to determine upon a course of action concerning the woman who has broken into the Tower."

It's the first time he's spoken. His deep voice cuts easily through the rising tension around the table. They all turn to him, surprise in their movements: Thor has as much of a temper as Tony and Steve do, it's usually Tasha or Clint who cuts into the argument with some pointed remark.

"This woman has abilities that rival yours," he says to Natasha.

"Yes."

"How so?"

"Well, you know about – the Red Rooms. She's another Successful, like me."

"I recall you telling us that you had killed all of them."

James' head turns, surprise, curiosity. She has not told him that.

"I told you _most_ of them were dead," says Tasha. "I killed four. Two others had died on missions in the Sixties and Seventies. Three I've lost track of. One of those was Ksenia. According to the information I had at the time everything pointed to them having left the business, maybe even together."

Bruce is silent, and still, and wary, but his hands are no longer twisting. Tasha is aware that sometimes Bruce feels worse for Steve, and James, and herself, than he does for himself, as if it's brought home to him by their histories that not even perfecting his research would have saved him from a god–awful life.

(It certainly wouldn't have protected him from Ross.)

"Who are the other two?"

Tasha smiles faintly. "Two men. Alexei and Yuri."

"Any chance you might trust any of these guys?" asks Tony.

"Snowball's in hell," says Tasha.

"Oy vey," says Tony.

She raises her eyebrows at him.

"Hey," he says. "You know my position on sharing with the class. I'm worse at it than you are, and that's saying something. What might she want with Bruce, assuming he was targeted deliberately?"

"I don't know," Tasha says quietly.

Tony's eyes go to James, who's about to answer when Jarvis pre–empts him. "Sir, facial recognition scan complete. I have the footage here for you sir, but I suspect you'll be more interested in the fact that Miss Ksenia has just entered Captain Rogers' rooms."

"What happened to the lockdown?" asks Bruce.

"Just this floor now," says Tony, standing up.

"Wait, _my_ rooms?" says Steve, frowning.

"Shall we go ask her?" suggests Clint.

It's a bad plan, so of course they go with it. Stage B's the time for excellent, well–thought–out, exquisitely executed strategies. Stage A is for looking before they leap and waiting to see what starts shooting at them.

Or runs away from them, as the case may be.

 

*********

 

It's a sixty–second ride in the elevator, spent checking everybody's guns. Clint, being Clint, takes the air vent. Nat shrugs and goes with him. Thor goes around outside the Tower, promising not to shatter any more windows than he absolutely has to. He has a look, however, that suggests his definition of "absolutely has to" might look a little different to Steve's.

"This is ridiculous," says Bucky.

"Oh, come on," says Steve. "It can't be worse than Vichy."

"OK, seriously, _what happened_ at Vichy?" Tony demands.

"Forget it," Bucky deadpans. "Your opinion of Howard is bad enough as it is."

Tony's still laughing silently when the elevator opens on Steve's floor. It's quiet, doesn't look like much – if anything – is out of place. Lot of bookshelves, lot of wood, easel and paints, pile of sketchpads, Steve's leather jacket flung over the armchair, his camera on the coffee table; the door to his darkroom is closed, but the bathroom door is open, and there's the red they've been waiting for, deep rich scarlet that shimmers in the light.

"That’s a conspicuous shirt," says Steve, raising his voice.

Ksenia moves out of the bathroom without really opening the door much farther; she sort of slides around it, sinuously. She's objectively good–looking, with blue eyes and high cheekbones, mouth made for smiling that doesn't. Now that he's looking for it, Bruce can see the strength in her shoulders, the muscles in her arms that the loose shirt almost hides. She's holding a gun and, incongruously, Steve's razor.

"I'm not really trying to hide," she says. Still has an accent.

"Was there something you wanted?" Steve asks. The gun's trained on her head; he's got a clear shot. Tony stands at his right shoulder, the homing bracelet for the suit around his wrist, his whole body tight. Bucky's behind them, waiting in the corridor: element of surprise when she recognises him.

"Your DNA," says Ksenia calmly.

Bruce doesn't need to see Steve's face to know his eyebrows are climbing. Tony grins, sharply wolfish. "There's easier ways to get at that than breaking in here."

Steve sighs, a put–upon sort of sigh.

"I admit I was curious to see Dr. Banner as well," says Ksenia. "You're somewhat less of an abomination than I was led to expect, Doctor."

Bruce smiles, sharp–edged and unamused. "Thank you," he says dryly. "Judging by your choice of words, you've been keeping company with General Ross."

Her mouth tightens. Oh, she didn't realise he'd get that. Nice. And behind her the cover of the vent in the ceiling near the windows is slowly being lowered.

"Let me guess, he gave you the cover you used to waltz in here?" says Tony.

"Sir," says Jarvis, "it would appear that the lady is your three o'clock meeting with the liaison from the Department of Defence."

"Don't tell me he thought that wouldn't be traced back to him."

Ksenia shrugs. "General Ross isn't my concern," she says. "He merely offered me an opportunity that coincided with my own needs."

"Which... involve my DNA," says Steve. "That's disturbing." He doesn't take his eyes off her as Natasha drops to the floor, as Clint's legs appear above her, sliding out of the vent.

She laughs. "You underestimate the price you could fetch selling a vial of your blood, or a cutting of your hair," she says. "It runs to the several millions, Captain Rogers. Of course, so does mine."

"Of course."

"There aren't many of us left. And the only one of us in whom it appears to have been perfected is you. When you die, Captain, make sure your family knows to burn your corpse. Oh – do you... _have_ any of that left?"

Bruce clenches a hand so tight his nails bite into his palm and his fingers ache with the pressure. He'd really, really like to punch that smirk off her face.

Of course, he'd like to punch her full stop.

"Yes," Tony says. "Why?"

A tick in her jaw. Tony grins again. "Aw," he says. "Jealous?"

The gun moves, slowly, from Steve to Tony. "I could kill you before his bullet hits me," she says.

"So you're a sloppy planner _and_ you've got a death wish."

Steve sighs again. "Tony, stop antagonising the dangerous assassin, please?"

"Oh, a compliment!"

"He said you were dangerous," says Natasha, sounding bored. "Not that you were any good."

Ksenia whips around so fact Bruce can barely follow, but Natasha is faster. Natasha is _always_ faster. People never learn that. Kick to the wrist that sends the gun spinning and step in close and punch her in the face: one, twice, Ksenia staggers, almost rallies, she really does have the serum, and then Clint puts an arrow in her shoulder.

Nat's face tightens. Roundhouse kick – wow, she's furious, she's been as angry as Tony, as angry as Bruce himself, this whole time – and Ksenia collapses.

 

*********

 

So it turns out that among all the other marvels his lab contains, Tony has a pair of handcuffs that can restrain a super–soldier.

"Actually, that... doesn't even surprise me," says Bruce.

"Well, I was sort of hoping for Captain America to be less vanilla than he is, but –"

"But thankfully I've never gotten over that pesky straight... ness," says Steve.

Tony laughs. "Yeah, well. Actually I made them for me, for the suit. I wanted to know how much work I'd have to put into it to get out of cuffs while wearing it..."

"You needed to actually make cuffs for that?" says Clint doubtfully.

"No, but Pepper thought it would be fun."

Chorus of horrified groans. Tony and Pepper's lack of anything resembling inhibitions is well–documented – of course, it is their Tower, and it's not their fault that everyone treats their private penthouse like the Gryffindor common room. But still.

 

*********

 

When Ksenia comes back up to the land of living, Nat is waiting for her. They're in the gym; it's reinforced to hold the Hulk if Bruce ever loses control during training – not something that's ever happened, but something he'll always be afraid of. Mostly though, they're in the gym because it's enclosed, and there's nothing here that's important, nothing here that's personal.

"Widow," says Ksenia. "Word was you were dead."

"Word's unreliable."

"So I see. Was it you killed Ivan, Nicholas?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They were in the way."

"Of?"

"A job I took."

"The Americans must be paying you very well."

"Actually," says Natasha thoughtfully, "for what I do, SHIELD pay me a fucking pittance."

Ksenia laughs for a long time. "Oh, what is the world coming to. Black Widow's joined the Justice League."

"Wrong again," says Natasha. "We're the Avengers – we have better tech and a lot more fun. Case in point, Comic Con. I came back from Comic Con last year with a Hanzo sword and a signed edition of American Gods and the world's worst hangover after having spent twenty–four hours in the bar debating Darth Vader versus Ellen Ripley with those two British guys from _Shaun of the Dead_. The consensus was that Ellen would win. And I have it on excellent authority that Clint spent that evening teaching Maria Hill the Hip Thing to the tune of the Lumberjack Song."

Ksenia stares. It couldn't be more obvious that she has no idea what Natasha is talking about. "You've changed."

"That's human nature."

She laughs again. "Is that what we are?"

Natasha pauses. "Isn't it?"

"You tell me. Open my shirt."

"Ksen–"

" _Open my shirt_."

Natasha steps forwards and undoes her shirt. The loose silk smoothes away from skin that ought to be as unblemished, as unnaturally unscarred, as Natasha's own – but isn't. Ksenia is not wearing a bra and Natasha can see why: the strip of angry grey–green scaling runs right down her breastbone, spreads in jagged marks across the top of her abdomen below her ribcage; her navel is bandaged, the wide square plaster stiff and yellow with dried pus, tinged just slightly with red.

"It's on my thighs as well," says Ksenia. "It's creeping over my entire body. Alexei is unaffected as yet, but Yuri is crippled, Natasha, his very bones have shrunk; all his left side is an open sore."

Natasha's hands begin to shake.

"When it starts on you," says Ksenia bitterly, "let me know."

It's nothing but willpower, long habit that have her walking out of the gym instead of running. The others are there, waiting; James reaches for her, Tony says something, but Natasha pushes past them and walks into the nearest bathroom and throws up over the toilet bowl for what feels like an eternity.

Clint kneels by her and holds her hair back.

 

*********

 

It's Steve who walks into the gym and gently re–buttons Ksenia's shirt.

"You wanted my blood to find a way to cure that," he says.

"Perceptive of you."

"Why didn't you just _ask_?"

"I had no reason to believe you'd listen."

"But you obviously hoped it. You weren't exactly subtle."

Ksenia looks away. "I'm afraid," she says. "That... that has not happened to me in a very long time."

"If I uncuff you, will you trust us?"

She meets his eyes, surprised. Pauses there. "No. But I won't harm you. Will you trust me?"

Steve smiles. Ksenia starts, is watching him the way a rabbit on a road at night watches the headlights of an approaching car; how has she been living, all these years since the collapse of the Red Rooms, since her supposed escape, if she can't even accept a genuine smile from another human being?

"No. But I won't harm you."

"Wonderful."

He uncuffs her. She takes the hand he offers and lets him draw her to her feet.

 

*********

 

"So," says Betty. "You're collecting rogue super–solider Russian ninja assassin spies."

"They're pretty and they bring me lunch," Bruce deadpans.

She huffs a laugh. "Pass those test results again."

 

*********

 

Upstairs, Pepper and Tony are having pretty much the exact same conversation.

 

*********

 

"You!" Ksenia says when she sees the Winter Soldier; then she shakes her head. "Might have known."

"Probably should have," he agrees.

She frowns, puzzled. "But you're American."

He laughs. "I'm from _Brooklyn_ , sunshine," he says.

"I don't understand."

"You don't need to," says Natasha, slinking up to the Soldier's elbow. "Where are Alexei and Yuri?"

"In the city. Hidden. We couldn't risk leaving Yuri alone. They won't trust you, Widow."

"That's all right," says the Soldier dryly. "Steve and I will go. Got something to give 'em?"

She shakes her head.

"Just your charm then," says Rogers to the Soldier. "This'll be a short trip."

"Hey," says Natasha. "I feel like you're impugning my taste in men."

"Nat," says Rogers. "I love you, but – _seriously_." He says it with such thoughtless ease, and Natasha accepts it the same way. It makes things twist in Ksenia's chest – a curiosity she thought had been beaten out of her by the time she was twenty.

She thought it had been beaten out of Natasha too.

 

*********

 

They take her upstairs, the three of them, something like an honour guard. The skin between Ksenia's shoulder blades itches; her hands clench to stop them trembling, a little, with the need to strike out and to run. Her left arm is in a sling across her chest, the arrow wound throbbing as it begins to heal. The penthouse is large and bright, though the sky is overcast and the day is rather bleak. The room is comfortable, as far as Ksenia can tell. There are a ridiculous number of couches, computers all over, a kitchen, a bar, a long dining table, a balcony.

More people than she was expecting: the archer leans against the bar with his weapons in his hands, the billionaire Stark is pouring a glass of something, there is a blond man by the window who might almost be a Successful himself, judging by his build; Doctor Banner is bent over a holographic computer display with a dark–haired woman at his side: Betty Ross, the General's daughter. A redhead in a pair of highly improbable heels gives her a once–over Ksenia can only describe as _irritated_.

"Other people collect buttons," she says. "Which of you is volunteering to call Phil?"

"I already did," says the archer. "Why is she not tied up?"

"Because I decided it wasn't necessary," says Rogers calmly.

The archer grunts, but accepts this.

"I'm flattered you think I'm so dangerous," says Ksenia, trying for some control back.

"I'd hate for Nat to have to exert herself putting you down again," he says.

"Hypocrite," Natasha tells him. He puts his bow down on the bar and crosses his arms over his chest.

"If you say so."

"No wait, I know this one. Trying to kill _you_ is allowed, but not anyone else."

"That's pretty much it exactly."

"I wasn't trying to kill anyone," says Ksenia, slightly surprised.

"You've got a funny way of showing it," says the redhead.

Ksenia looks back at her and decides she can't be bothered hiding her anger. The redhead, however, laughs at her. Admittedly Ksenia is bandaged and bruised and wobbling a little on her feet and dying to boot, being eaten up by her own body from the inside out, but... still. That's not the reaction she usually gets. "Sweetie, you'll have to try harder than that." The redhead sniffs. "All right. I have to get back downstairs. Call me if anyone else tries breaking in." This to Stark, who has wandered over to her.

"I won't," he says cheerfully. "Have fun."

"You too," she says dryly. "Make Phil stay over, we'll feed him breakfast, I swear he eats about as well as you do, which is not at all."

And – somewhat to Ksenia's surprise – she and Stark kiss before she leaves. She's starting to feel a little uncomfortable around all this obnoxiously demonstrated affection. It's making her skin crawl. It's making her more and more afraid.

 

*********

 

Phil Coulson surveys the damage with a jaundiced eye and a plateful of chocolate cake in one hand. Ksenia is eating her own, somewhat awkwardly, at the dining table. She's not looking at him, and has in fact spent the last twenty minutes he has been in the room not looking at him with great and careful concentration.

"Is this becoming a habit?" Phil asks. "You need to tell me if this is becoming a habit, I'm not saying it would be a bad one if it were but it takes up a lot of time and resources, I really ought to know about it in advance."

"Eat your chocolate cake, Phil," says Tony.

Phil takes a bite. It's too good not to. He has an awful feeling Tony baked it himself and wonders briefly if any of the others have arrived at that suspicion yet. Pepper said something once about Tony baking. In all fairness though they were a little drunk at the time.

"The serum is killing her," Bruce repeats. "It's modifying her DNA, mutating her body."

"I got that part," says Phil, but gently. The sight of the damage done to Ksenia's chest and thighs by her own body has thrown Bruce for a loop, as well it might. It's good Betty's here as well as Tony and the others. Of course, Phil would feel better if Steve and Bucky were here too, but there you go.

_You can't always get what you wa–ant..._

It's going on ten o'clock at night. Twelve hours ago Bruce was in a grocery store, looking for the perfect packet of bacon.

Phil sighs. "Fury know?"

"Nope," says Clint.

"Nat's going to have to fess up now."

"Figured."

"Fess up what?" asks Bruce.

"That she hasn't aged in twenty years," says Clint. "It got kind of obvious eventually, but as long as no one brought it up no one's put it in the reports, and as long as no one's put it in the reports..."

"The official assumption that Natasha is the third or fourth woman to use the codename Black Widow continues unabated," finishes Phil.

"You know that whatever happens you can't let my father get his hands on this information," says Betty. " _Any_ of this information."

Phil looks thoughtful. "Yes," he says. "I'm still a little unclear on how and why General Ross comes into this."

 

*********

 

"You worried?" Steve asks quietly as they get out of the car.

"Not yet," says Bucky. "I know you're not."

"About me?" Steve says. "I don't know yet."

"Steve, listen. Promise me –"

Steve sucks a breath in like it's the last he'll ever draw and holds it there for longer than he needs to; every sinew in his body wants him to yell no and is more than a little tempted to hit Bucky in the face besides, but let's be honest: every sinew in his body is a reason to push his breath out again and look over at Bucky and say, "I promise. You –"

"Yes," says Bucky, steady and calm.

They cross the road and head into the building. 14B is on the third floor. There's a light under the door, and the sound of a man crying.

 

*********

 

Tony is phoning six dozen people at once and threatening hellfire and disappointed emails from Pepper if they don't dish the goods on General Ross when Natasha's own cell rings: ridiculously, it's _From Russia with Love_.

Phil raises his eyebrows. "Barnes?"

"Clint thought it was funny," says Natasha.

Apparently so did she, or she would've changed it. Phil strangles a sigh before it escapes him. He worries sometimes about the ease with which Natasha and Bucky confront their past, laugh it off, make jokes about it; other times he thinks it's the only way they've stayed sane and dealt with it.

"Romanov. Yeah – fuck. OK. Coulson's here, he'll sort it."

"It's the official Avengers slogan," Phil says to Ksenia. "Phil will sort it."

She raises her eyebrows at him. Seems feeding her chocolate cake was a pretty good call. None of them can go forever on little food.

"Phil," says Nat. She's hung up. He looks at her. So does everyone else.

"Yuri's dead. He died a few hours ago. Steve'll stay, but Alexei's coming in with James."

"Don't!" says Phil sharply, ignoring Ksenia's gasp behind him. "Thor, Tony, get down there. Tasha, call Barnes back, make him and Alexei double back and stay with Steve. If it's genetic material Ross is after, then Yuri's corpse –"

Nat has already whirled around and begun dialling.

 

*********

 

Nothing's happened to any of them when Phil arrives. He's not sure if he was actually expecting it to have. It's a bad part of town and a dingy apartment; the door to the bedroom is open, and a grubby sheet has been pulled over a shape that's – that can't possibly be –

"I would appreciate it," says a man's voice in the dimness, "if you would not stare at my friend, Agent Coulson."

Phil turns. "Alexei?" he says. The man is as blond as Ksenia, tall and broad–shouldered, built much like Steve to be honest. Phil can't see the colour of his eyes, but his jaw is sharp and his hands are clenched at his sides. He also has a distinctly Australian accent, much in the way Natasha has an American one.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry to meet you under these circumstances."

"I doubt you'd be happy to meet me at all, Agent Coulson."

"I don't know. Natasha likes me."

He laughs. "Widow is... not exactly _representative_ of us."

"Is Sergeant Barnes?"

Silence.

"The Winter Soldier."

"Oh, the Soldier! _Only_ a Sergeant?"

Oh crap. There's a mockery there that Phil does not like at all. If Ksenia's fear is making her desperate, vulnerable, Alexei's is making him resentful.

"If it's a thrashing you're after, kid, I can arrange for that," drawls Barnes. "The way I remember you it won't take long."

Oh double–crap. That's so far out of character – both for the Winter Soldier, excessively professional, and for Bucky Barnes, who's been mopping up Steve's wounds from exactly that type of beating since they were God knows how old – that it's clear there's something more going on here.

Alexei moves, but Steve is quicker – were they in the bathroom? Probably. " _Enough_ ," he says, Army Captain through and through. You don't disobey that voice. Alexei falls back again. Bucky moves neither forwards nor back.

Finally Alexei's shoulders slump. Phil wants to slump himself – in relief.

"What will you do with him?" Alexei asks quietly.

"Burn his body," says Steve. "If there's anything he would have wanted done with his ashes –"

Alexei moves, impatient, dismissive. "Taken to his family? I thought you'd be intelligent."

Steve doesn't answer. Phil finds he's waiting for Alexei to cave; waiting for him to say, "Sir."

He doesn't. He sighs, though; it's as good as. "He saved my life in Melbourne ten years ago. We've hidden together ever since. I went looking for Ksenia when his mutations began..."

"When was that?" Phil has to clear his throat twice to get the words out.

"Two years ago. Ksenia's are progressing faster. Mine have not begun at all."

"Maybe never will," says Bucky.

Alexei shrugs. "Don't you feel," he asks, sounding suddenly interested, "like the last members of a dying race? Neanderthals or something. I don't know. Widow's wiped us out." He laughs then, cuttingly. "Driven us to extinction. And now we’ve finally come to this hellhole country that destroyed what kept us safe, and she wants to _save_ us."

"Then that makes her unique and you should treasure it," says Phil, suddenly irritated with the whole production. "Most other people who know you exist want you dissected."

"The expendable Commie spy."

"The murderer," says Phil, silken–soft. "The _unrepentant_ murderer."

Alexei's stillness has a different quality now. Phil sees him cross his arms over his chest, turn his face away, swallow, Adam's apple prominent.

"Well?"

Alexei shrugs. "Lead the way, Agent Coulson."

 

*********

 

They carry Yuri's twisted, misshapen body out on a stretcher. The sheet is thin and Bucky and Steve try not to look down, not to see redness or green, grey or black, not to trace the lines of lumps that had once been arms, legs, shoulders, a head like their own. The van drives them to SHIELD HQ where Yuri's body is lifted, gently, into the incinerator. There's not much dignity to it for a child taken and abused, brainwashed and tortured, finally destroyed from the inside out by what had been done to him sixty years ago and more.

Neither Steve nor Bucky looks away. Thor is pale, Tony unmoving, a statue of defiant red and gold (same colours as the flames). Alexei is dry–eyed and silent. Phil barely breathes.

 

*********

 

Stark Tower then. Not even Fury objects to that.

 

*********

 

Ksenia greets them on her feet and in Russian. "Was it – was it very bad?"

Alexei turns away. "He asked me to kill him."

 

*********

 

They ride down in the elevator together. Bruce hasn't spoken in two hours; Betty has his hand trapped in both of hers. When it slides to a halt on Natasha and James' floor, she catches Steve's wrist and tugs him out after them. He staggers, almost blindly, after her. She looks back at Betty and sees her friend smile before the doors close.

Then there's just them, just the three of them against the dark, and whatever's in their own bodies, waiting to betray them.

 

*********

 

"I find myself as helpless now as I ever have been with Loki," Thor says bitterly.

"There's nothing anyone can do, Thor," Jane says quietly. "Not even them."

He smiles angrily. "What kind of man admits that to his friends?"

It doesn't escape Jane that he says _man_ and not _god_.

 

*********

 

Bruce is shaking – not much, just a little, a fine tremor in his muscles; the biggest giveaway is how he moves his hands against her back, occasionally clenching into fists. Betty lies very still, letting her weight press him into the mattress, her body heat anchor him. Bruce's transformations are so much more than elevated heart rates, they both know that now, but that's a part of it; having sex is still risky, still something he worries about.

Bruce has become a champion worrier. He didn't used to be. What, you thought a guy who'd experiment with gamma rays on himself was nervous, or timid, or a coward? Betty could tell you a story or two. Half the trouble with the Hulk is that quiet and mild–mannered doesn't come easily to Bruce.

He settles at last, a hand coming up to play with her hair. She feels his sigh in her bones.

"Scared?" she says.

"Terrified. What if – if what we do for Ksenia can cure the Hulk?"

Oh, that was fast. She'd thought it would take ages to get to that question.

"I don't know. Is that really what we're trying to do, is that even possible?"

"Reverse –"

"Reverse what's essentially genetic engineering," says Betty. "You've seen what _Natasha_ can do. She doesn't _age_ , Bruce. She's been twenty–seven since the Sixties. That's not... that's not just enhancement. That's changing the way her body works at the most fundamental level. Are we really going to try and pummel Ksenia's into a different shape, like it's Playdough? How long could her cells take that? How long before her body starts de–stabilising, not because of a side–effect, but because of the strain put on it? And if that happened there wouldn't be any fixing it, not ever. She wouldn't even be Blonsky. There's a damn high likelihood her body would just liquefy."

"I know."

"Bruce," says Betty carefully. She's talking into his shoulder, hasn't looked at him, couldn't bear to see his face right now, to watch as he understands that she'd rather he kept the Hulk than risk his life entirely. "Is that. I need you to know what you're asking me to do, but if you want –"

"Want?" he says bitterly. "Want." He sighs again. "I'll always _want_ , Betty. You trust him – the others trust him – I don't know if I ever will, not like that, not unconditionally. I spent years..."

Being hurt, being on the run, struggling with it, sometimes succeeding, failing more often, never remembering – he still doesn't, except in dreams – what happened while he was transformed: he can control when it happens now, but he'll always have those scars.

Betty feels sick to her stomach. It's not her choice. "OK," she says. "OK." It's such an effort. It's not her choice. "Tomorrow, we'll –"

"Tomorrow, nothing," he says. His arms go round her, hold her tightly. "You're right, you know. I can't – well, I don't particularly want to end up liquefied." He laughs. "Tony'd keep me in a jar on his desk. I can't do that to you. I won't betray the others like that either."

She laughs too, imagining a flesh–coloured goop in a jar in Tony's workshop – oh, it's not funny, it really isn't, but she can't stop giggling, not till Bruce kisses her quiet.

"You idiot," she says.

"I love you," he says.

 

*********

 

Pepper sits in the workshop with Tony for a long time and holds him while he shakes, both of them trying not to cry. Then, together, they unlock the boxes Fury had given them with Howard Stark's handwriting on the labels: _Project Rebirth, 1942._

There is other, newer lettering above those words. _For Tony_.

 

*********

 

Clint paces the Tower and strokes his bowstring the way other people would caress a lover and thinks _come on Ross, one clean shot at you. I'd like that. I almost need it_.

Ross never appears.

Well, if the mountain won't come to Muhammed...

 

*********

 

SHIELD comes to them. Both Betty and Bruce laugh off the idea that dragging Ksenia and Alexei to HQ is anything like a good idea; besides, as they also point out, Tony has better equipment. Phil thinks he won't bring that argument up with Fury. It's almost certainly safer to play on his compassion and his better nature. They re–purpose a corner of the biotech R&D floor into a hospital room for Ksenia. Alexei – "Alex," he says at last, "just Alex." – disappears into the gym, Phil thinks with Thor, and probably sets to tiring himself out with punchbags and workouts the same way Steve would in the first weeks after he was found, before Loki.

Speaking of Steve, and by extension Bucky and Nat, none of them are anywhere to be seen. Neither is Clint. Tony wanders off eventually, bored with genetics talk he does understand but doesn't seem, just at that moment, to want to. Later on Darcy comes by with a pile of Howard Stark's old research notes on Project Rebirth.

Ksenia sits on her bed and watches everything and nothing. Phil hopes she's getting some comfort out of seeing them try to help her, but he doubts it.

It's not as if their motivations are entirely altruistic.

 

*********

 

Steve hasn't moved in about half an hour now. He's not sure he could if he tried. The sunlight's warm on the walls and floor, strips painted by the blinds, and he misses, for the first time in months, the rather dingy Brooklyn apartment he wrangled out of SHIELD in the first weeks he was awake. There were trees in the street outside, and you could open the windows and catch a breeze and the smell of brick and leaves. Maybe he ought to go back, tidy the place up, spend a few days there. It might help, in a different way.

"You hate him," he says.

Bucky shifts. "Yeah."

"Better or worse than Billy Kimble?"

Muffled laughter; Natasha is asleep again, hair a red slash across the sheets. "Better, much better. Billy Kimble was a lunatic."

"He was ten."

"So?"

Steve smiles up at the ceiling like an idiot. Bucky shifts closer, drops his voice, breath skating warm against Steve's shoulder. Natasha murmurs, burrows deeper into the sheets: loose–limbed, content, safe.

"He told them about us. Tasha and I. I wasn't sure until much later. I don't know how he found out. But it was him who told them."

Steve doesn't know, and is aware that he won't ever know, what happened to Bucky and Nat after the Red Rooms found out that they were in love. What he does know, however, is that Bucky feels guilty for it (he was older, he should have known better) and Natasha implacably furious.

"Nat doesn't know," Bucky says.

Steve catches his flesh and blood hand, rubs his thumb over Bucky's knuckles. "She'll kill him if she finds out." He knows that much at least, knows Nat that well. And it won't even be the injuries done to her that'll drive her to it. It'll be Bucky's.

That was the hardest thing the Avengers learned about each other. They're all more similar than they are different.

"I might yet do it myself."

"No, you won't."

Bucky huffs. "Why does she get to but not me?"

"Because," says Steve, "she's Natasha. And you're the one who never learned how not to let it touch you."

"I suppose you did, Captain America."

"Not really," says Steve. He twists onto his side, facing Bucky at last, Nat, so much smaller than both of them, caught warm and smooth between their bodies, and this is a gift, this love between them that shapes itself any way they need it to, stretching far and pulling them back. Steve thinks he'll love Peggy for the rest of his life, miss her snark and her smile and her steel, but it's not all–consuming, never was, would have burnt itself out by now if it were.

Steve has come to the conclusion that love is not supposed to burn, unless it's like this: on a low heat, constantly fed, constantly flickering. Also, he's losing track of this metaphor. The point is, he wants to sketch this moment and hold it forever, something to come back to over and over.

He knows he doesn't need to sketch it to come back to it. He still wants to.

Bucky ruffles his hair. "Yeah."

"Stop that."

Flash of a grin. "Or?"

"I –" Steve gestures, irritably. There's a dirty joke here and in his place Bucky would make it, but let's be honest, Steve doesn't have much practice. "I'll think of something."

"Boys," Natasha yawns. "If you're going to fight over something, fight over me. Hmm. Or go back to sleep. Stop moving, I was comfortable."

"I've got pins and needles," says Bucky, mouth curving.

Natasha raises her head, eyes glinting through the messy hair hanging mostly over her face. "Oh...?"

They grin at each other gleefully; Steve snorts, almost manages to sit up. "Breakfast?"

"Don't be ridiculous," says Nat.

"I'll make you bacon sandwiches for lunch," says Bucky. "Come _back here_."

Steve goes back.

 

*********

 

Clint comes home around lunchtime, whistling to himself, and finds Tony in his living room with a bottle of Scotch.

"Early," he says.

"I've earned it," says Tony. He hasn't drunk much of the stuff. Offers Clint a glass, which he takes. These days Tony drinks in an absent–minded sort of way, like it's just a part of his routine, just as much as coffee is. Clint is convinced he drinks a lot less now than he once did. Half the Internet is a testament to Tony's former, far more... stringent... attitude to drinking.

Tony is waiting for him. Clint knocks his drink back – an insult, really, to Tony's excellent Scotch.

"I didn't torture him. I wouldn't do that."

"To Steve?"

"Or to you." It's always puzzled Clint that most of the world seems to believe Tony was treated well by the Ten Rings. The first thing the man did when he came out of Afghanistan was build himself a weaponised flying suit of armour, for Chrissakes. "I'm not going to pretend that I wouldn't have," he adds suddenly. Tony deserves the truth. "Say, ten years ago. Well, maybe more."

Tony sighs. "Yeah. Five years ago, I'd've... probably called it patriotism, and not even cared."

Clint holds out his glass for another drink. Tony obliges, because he's an obliging kind of guy to the people who love him.

"So what did Ross have to say for himself?"

"Not much, really. What did you find out?"

"Not much. Loada rumours. Couple of Rhodey's friends put me on to the supposition that Ross's funds are running out, Mary Singer says there's injuries been coming out of his, uh, facility. Add that to what we know about our comrades downstairs, and I'm thinking Blonsky's acting out a little."

Clint smiles. "Better than that," he says. "According to Ross, the good news is: Blonsky's dead. Like Yuri."

Tony raises both eyebrows, nods appreciatively.

"The bad news is, Ross was aiming to find out why. He wants research, studies, the whole shebang. And – he didn't say this, probably knew I'd kill him for it. But I think he wanted samples from Bruce and Steve."

"Does he know about Nat and Bucky?"

"Doesn't seem to. I wasn't going to ask him in so many words."

"Point."

"So he decides to hire someone to get into Avengers Tower and grab – hair samples, blood, toenail clippings for all I know. A professional won't give him away as quickly as a bunch of military goons in full uniform showing up."

Tony snorts. "And Ksenia hears that he's put word out for that job and grabs her chance."

"Et voila."

"Hel–lo, Dolly. Clint Barton speaks French."

"I speak more languages than you do, asshole," Clint says easily.

Tony grins. They drink in silence for a while. Neither of them have slept in twenty–four hours; it's showing on their faces, they can each feel it in how quickly the world's taken on a rosy glow of drunkenness. It's barely noon. Downstairs, Betty and Bruce are working to cure Ksenia.

"Fury brought my dad's old research notes last night," says Tony at last. "He'd tried to make them give me clearance – Dad, I mean. I never knew that." He sighs tiredly, sounds a million years old. "Fucking idiot, letting Erskine keep his research in his head like that, letting him die. Leaving us to bail out what he started."

Clint considers this for a moment. "You know," he says, proud of the way his words aren't slurring, "I'm not sure you're the guy who gets to do the self–pity thing in this particular situation."

Tony bursts out laughing. "Burn! Ouch. Yeah. You're probably right. But Dad – he could've fixed this, Clint. I don't know if we can. I don't know if we know enough."

"We've got to," Clint says.

"I know," says Tony. "I know we do."

Clint sighs. "There was," he says softly, "one other thing."

 

*********

 

Clint and Tony stumble back into the lab around six o'clock, bleary–eyed and pale. Neither of them have showered but they've obviously slept in their clothes and come straight here. Phil reaches over and puts the coffee machine on for them.

"Bit of a sitch," says Clint.

Phil looks at him.

"Ross has decided he doesn't like me much."

"If his goons show up here I'm offering you as a human sacrifice," says Phil.

 

*********

 

Nick Fury walks out of the elevator into Natasha and James' apartment around midnight. Steve has gone downstairs, to feed the squints, pour liquids other than coffee into them, sit with Ksenia. He'll be back. James is asleep, sprawled across the sofa like a rag doll tossed by a child; one leg is hanging off it, he hasn't combed his hair since they showered.

Natasha stands silently between him and Fury, arms crossed over her chest.

"You lied," he says, watching her closely.

"You assumed. I didn't correct."

"Lie of omission."

She shrugs. "Call it what you want."

He sighs. "It won't go in the reports."

"No?"

"No. I'm trying very hard just now, Agent Romanov, to keep a lot of things out of the reports. One of the only reasons Cap himself isn't a lab rat right now is because he _is_ Cap. You and Barnes don't even have that protection. The other two downstairs have still less."

"I know."

"Romanov," Fury says, sighs again. "Answer me one thing."

"If I can."

"If I ordered you –"

Natasha shakes her head. He doesn't move, doesn't finish the sentence.

"I'm not here to exchange one prison for another. I owe SHIELD a debt. I owe _you_ a debt. I intend to honour it. But I've broken my word before." She shrugs. "I won't be made mindless." He still doesn't move. In the half–dark, she smiles. "This is the price you pay for your remarkable people, Nick."

Fury laughs tiredly. "You sound like Hill, and both of you are right. You can't mould a group of super–soldiers and alien gods and mad scientists – they come pre–formed, batteries included. I realised that, but I don't think I _knew_ it." She sees him move at last, put his hands in his pockets. "Well. For all our sakes, I hope you find a cure. Sleep well, Agent Romanov. Sergeant Barnes."

Tasha rolls her eyes. James, face mashed into the sofa cushions, snorts.

 

*********

 

Steve ambles into Tony's workshop on the second day, rifles through Howard's notes – "He always did have the worst handwriting" – studies, thoughtfully, the schematics for the machine they stuck him in.

"Bored?" asks Tony.

Steve shrugs. "Useless."

Tony's look is halfway between a wince and a smile. Hell of a long time ago, that fight; hell of a lot that's changed since then. Time has worked so fast for them these last two years, so _hard_ : compressing all their lives together, tangling them up in each other. "Yeah. Me too. It's Bruce and Betty doing all the work. I hang around and make pithy comments."

They fall on the couch together, shoulders touching. Dummy brings them a beer each.

"The others –" says Steve.

"Dealing," says Tony. "Not much choice. S'good of Thor to handle Alexei. Every time Bucky looks at him I think there's gonna be a punch–up."

Steve's silent for a moment. "There might yet," he says. "Alexei told the Red Rooms about Bucky and Nat."

Tony pauses. "OK," he says. "If it was him with the scaling and the open wounds I would be stopping work right about this fucking instant."

"No, you wouldn't," says Steve. "Nat's done worse. Bucky's done worse. When you get right down to it, Tony, I've done worse."

Tony's counter hangs in the air between them, unspoken but known: _Not to people I love_. Under the suit and the arc reactor and everything they represent, Tony Stark is still the same selfishly ruthless bastard he always was. Steve knows that.

"You trust him?" asks Tony at last, carefully.

"I don't trust either of them," says Steve. "But I'd like to."

Tony opens his mouth to say something about optimism and blinkers and needing Steve to be careful and not get hurt or whatever, but in the event what emerges is, "I thought that about Bruce. Before we met."

Steve smiles. "And look how well that's turned out."

"Right. So trust 'em, and see what happens."

"Yeah."

Contemplative silence, Dummy shuffles, something's humming. They drink, and feel better for it, and for their stupidly unlikely friendship that neither of them even really wanted but wouldn’t ever do without, until Tony – because even when he's having a moment with someone, he's still Tony – says, "So, speaking of Bucky and Nat," and Steve says, "None of your business," and Tony says, "Just don't kill each other, it's hell on the carpets," and Steve says, "Tony, you don't even _have_ carpets," and Tony says, "Cause of rug burn – I hate rug burn," and Steve says, "I imagine it's hell on your knees once you've hit forty," and Tony leaps up and yells "OUT!"

"Perhaps an insensitive observation, sir, but certainly not an untrue one," Jarvis remarks. Steve collapses on the couch, choking with laughter. Tony hits him with a cushion, just on general principles, and proceeds to sulk into his beer.

 

*********

 

Bucky trips over him in the kitchen about six hours later, piling a couple slices of bread with cheese and ham and sliced boiled egg and what appears to be leftover beef curry, rice included.

"That's disgusting," says Bucky. "It's three a.m. Snacks at this time of night are supposed to be either cereal or bread and butter."

"Shuddup, I'm eating," says Tony.

"Hah."

Tony eyes him sideways. Bucky slices more bread, opens the butter, hunts down a knife.

"Go on then," he says at last.

"They know you," Tony says promptly.

"Yeah."

"You..."

"Were there when the serum project got underway. I wasn't given many details but I had the general idea about how it was going."

"How was it going?"

"Overall? Not well."

Tony sighs. "Anything that'll help?"

Bucky finishes smearing every square millimetre of his slice with butter before he looks up at him. Steve does that too, almost joyfully: it's–not–rationed–anymore. "I hope not."

"Hmm. Yeah." Tony balances a strip of lemon chicken on top of his – by now rather mountainous – sandwich and chows down. Bucky settles for strawberry jam, licking the knife and folding the slice of bread in half so the jam squeezes out from between the crusts.

"That's pathetic," says Tony.

Bucky glances down at it, shrugs. "We'd live off it, some weeks," he says. "Most weeks. This and potatoes. We fixed Mrs O'Reilly's windows up for her once and she'd leave pots of jam on our doorstep... lot of the time they got stolen." He smiles. "Neighbourhood kids. Sometimes Steve would forget to take it in with him so they could have it."

"That's... very Steve."

"Yeah. Course, back then an extra blanket and money for the docs would have done him way more good. But... _jam_ , you know?"

"Finer things in life," says Tony, careful not to smile. Bucky looks at him like he's aware of that, but doesn't say anything. The sky's faded grey before Pepper comes looking for Tony; they're halfway through _Ferris Bueller's Day Off_.

 

*********

 

Using their first names makes Ksenia flinch. Hers is a codename, often used to avoid confusion but unimportant. Theirs are signs of familiarity, of closeness.

She doesn't _want_ closeness. It makes her skin crawl, it makes her dizzy and angry. She has killed and spied and stolen for a cause and for cash; she has lived in towns and cities all across the globe, spoken dozens of languages, met, spoken with, eaten or drank or worked or slept with, dozens of people. She has never cared. She never wished to learn how. Even Alexei's grief for Yuri is alien to her. Yuri's death impacts her because it has implications for her own welfare. Nothing more.

Yet: wasn't she glad to see Natalia's face, to see the Soldier; isn't she, even now, oddly warmer when Steve is in the room, when Betty smiles at her?

(Comforted, they make you feel comforted.)

Once Natasha and Clint are there together; he slings an arm around her shoulders and carries on talking to Bruce. She leans on him as if she's been doing it for years.

She _has_ been doing it for years.

 

*********

 

"I could not help but notice some animosity between you and James," says Thor.

Alexei snorts. " _James_. No. I don't trust him. I never did. And apparently" – he waves a hand at their surroundings: Avengers Tower, New York City, America – "I was right."

Thor is curious. "You have no liking for this country?"

"None whatsoever. It would have worked, you know."

"What would have worked?"

"Socialism. Our ideals, our philosophy... they should have worked. All we needed was the right chance, the right people in the right place at the right time... it should have worked. So much of what's wrong with the world could have been made _better_."

"I suspect this is the point in the conversation at which Tony likes to proffer the opinion that not everyone's definition of _better_ overlaps," says Thor, amused now.

Alexei glances at him. "Your father rules Asgard."

"He does."

"Wisely?"

"Yes."

"Then you understand that sometimes –"

"Upon occasion," says Thor, "my father's definition of _wise_ can become restricted to _notions he agrees with_."

Alexei swallows, face closing up; Thor thinks he seems angry and is trying to hide it. He has heard, from Bruce, what this notion of communism represents; in theory an admirable and honourable endeavour. But Thor has also seen, in Natasha and in James, what the practice of this theory entailed.

It left him unimpressed and somewhat cynical where Midgardian political theories are concerned. Darcy once tried to convince him to introduce a parliament to Asgard; it took Thor the better part of a night to explain that half the disagreements aired there would end in bloodshed before the king's very seat; although, if this notion of a Speaker who kept order were adapted, and the office given to the Lady Sif...

But Alexei has made him uneasy. Two years ago they would have fought over it there and then. But they are talking in Tony and the Lady Pepper's kitchen; to begin a battle here is discourteous.

Furthermore, it occurs to Thor that Tony has kept his distance from Alexei as well.

 

*********

 

Midnight, Steve drags Bruce out of the lab by the collar of his shirt and manhandles him up to his apartment.

“Killing yourself won’t change a thing,” he says.

“I can’t kill myself,” says Bruce. His words are slurring with exhaustion. “Remember? Tried that hypothesis. Wasn’t viable.”

“I kind of doubt,” says Steve, “that Betty’s the only person in the Tower who’s grateful for that.”

Bruce turns his face away and smiles.

 

*********

 

Bruce ambushes Bucky on the balcony the next evening with a bottle of whiskey and a firm look: the one he gets when he's finally pysched himself up to something he doesn't want to do.

"Don't tell me," says Bucky. "You need to know about the original tests."

Bruce nods.

Bucky sighs. "Pass the whiskey."

"What I brought it for. To be passed."

 

*********

 

Tony's up to his elbows in Vita–Ray notes and empty coffee cups when Thor walks into his workshop. "Hey, don't step on that cable, you'll blow up the world."

Thor grins, and steps on the cable.

"No goddamned respect," says Tony, grinning back.

"I wished to speak to you about Alexei."

Tony straightens up. "Oh?" he says.

"I fear he is untrustworthy. He showed something of himself to me the other day... your conflict about this communism ideal, I think he feels it deeply."

"Not everybody deals as well with having the foundation of their life cut away from them as our Nat," says Tony superciliously.

Thor crosses his arms over his chest. "We have known each other long enough that I can tell when you're hiding something."

Tony shuffles coffee cups on his desk until he finds one that's half–full; Thor takes it off him before he can drink it. It's stone cold and has likely had grease and ink and dust and a parade of other substances poisonous and otherwise dripped into it by now. Tony glares, but doesn't object. "Go talk to Clint," he says. "We might have a plan. Don't tell the others, they're a little too close to this."

"Steve should be told."

"Steve's no use right now, he's too busy feeling sorry for Ksenia. I think she's in on it, Clint doesn't, there's a pool."

Thor sighs. "I will never understand why you insist on making these things so much more complicated than they need to be."

"Because," says Tony, "this way is more fun. If you see Darcy tell her I need coffee!"

 

*********

 

"I brought you some books," says Steve one morning. "I figured you'd be bored. Whenever I got sick I'd read."

Ksenia arches an eyebrow at him doubtfully. "You get sick?"

"Before the serum," he says. "I had asthma, and... a load of things really. I was a runt."

That's hard to imagine, and the expression on her face says so quite clearly. He laughs, which is a sound Ksenia has come to enjoy hearing.

"Then why you?" she asks.

"For the serum?"

She nods. He looks awkward, shrugs. "You know, I'm still not sure I know. Erskine said I was a good man, but – some days, during the War, you couldn't even tell what that meant any more. I'm still just a kid from Brooklyn gone for a soldier. Just gotta keep trying."

That makes her cynical. He's been experimented on, put through a war, spent seventy years clinically dead under the ocean only to be revived to the news that any part of the life he remembers is long dead and destroyed. And now there's the possibility – faint, but there – that he might end up like Yuri. "And get rewarded?"

Steve blinks. "Well," he says. "I have the Avengers. And I got Bucky back. And just because the Commandos and Peggy are dead doesn't mean they didn't make my life better in a – a myriad of ways. That's still there."

"Peggy?"

"Oh. Peggy was... _Peggy_. I loved her. Still do."

Ksenia chews on her bottom lip, picks up the books to distract herself, turns them over in her hands without reading any of the titles. "Natalia and the Soldier – Alexei doesn't like it."

" _I_ don't like it," Steve says easily, "one day they'll kill each other."

He's never lied to her before. She finds she doesn't like it, but the message there comes across: it's none of her or Alexei's business. Ksenia can accept that.

She has no reason not to.

She has no reason to _care_.

 

*********

 

By the end of the second week Bruce, Betty and Tony have... something. Ksenia's mutations have not crept any further – in fact they seem to have gone back, but according to Alexei this happened to Yuri too, at first. They'd appear, then leave, then return stronger than before.

"We're never going to be able to isolate the exact serum in Steve's blood," says Betty. "I just don't think it's possible. I have a feeling Erskine might even have designed it that way. But I think... I hope we've isolated enough." She's holding a test tube in her hands, filled with a clear liquid, enough for a syringe. "It might be enough to stop the mutations. It might just heal your symptoms for a short while. We can't be sure until we've tried it, but we _are_ sure it will help, at least temporarily."

"Can you not just take it out of me?" Ksenia bursts out. " _All_ of it?"

"No," Bruce says quietly. "I don't think anything can do that."

She's angry now, angrier than she can remember being since Alexei appeared in Hong Kong to find her, since she saw the first blemishes on her chest. "Why _not_?"

_I never asked for this, I didn't know what was happening to me, I don't want to die like this, take it out, put me back, make me better._

"You can't just reverse this kind of mutation completely," Bruce says, still so quiet. "It's changed your very cell structure, your DNA. Human beings aren't malleable; we're not made of dough you can form and re–form depending on what shape you want your loaf of bread to have. We think we can reverse the unintended side–effects. We know enough now not to try reversing any more fundamental changes."

"I might just be willing to risk my death," says Ksenia bitterly. (She’ll never know, though later on she will guess, how much it is costing Bruce to say this.)

The Soldier – Barnes – barks a laugh. When she looks at him, he has a gun in one hand and a knife in the other: he holds them out to her over the table. "Blade or bullet? Might as well. You've wasted enough of our resources."

She jerks as if he's hit her.

"Thought not. Stop being a fool."

Half the trouble with the Soldier is that she still responds, instinctively, to that same snap in his voice – _hit the mat now, position, attack_. Ksenia flushes. "It's not foolish, I'd say, to want to remove the thing inside you that makes you – a kind of monster, to be bought and sold."

"Only," says the Soldier, and now he sounds supremely bored, "if you let them. Ksenia, you're getting tiresome. It's late, it's been a long couple weeks, and I personally would appreciate this being over with so Tash and I can go to Maui this summer without having to worry about whether or not we'll turn into monsters on the flight over."

"I'm _not_ going to Maui," says Natasha.

"Come ooooooon. It'll be nice."

"For _you_ , maybe. Islands make me jumpy."

"That's ridiculous."

"It isn't. And you know, you could always ask in advance instead of wandering off and making plans on the sly –"

"Kids," says Tony. "Mommy and Daddy were trying to explain to the nice assassin lady why she should let her inject them with an experimental cell–changing serum laboriously retro–engineered from Steve's blood. Stop interrupting."

"Jesus fuck," says Ksenia, hoping to God they can't tell she's trying not to laugh. "Fine. Give me the stuff. I'll take it. Whether it kills me or cures me I'll be rid of you lunatics either way."

"I knew I liked her," says Tony to no one in particular. Clint rolls his eyes.

 

*********

 

They strap Ksenia to the bed before they inject her. She's very calm, but her face is white and her fingers clench involuntarily, curling in and flicking out in a rhythmic movement. She tilts her head back and stares at the ceiling as the needle slides in.

The convulsions are brief but brutal; the restraints don't hold and when it's over both Bucky and Steve have bruises, left bruises. Ksenia falls unconscious, body twitching but otherwise relaxed, before the rays start. Steve says, "Good," and rubs at his bruises.

 

*********

 

By hour three, she's asleep: truly, restfully asleep.

 

*********

 

By hour five, the scaling on her thighs has begun to creep back.

 

*********

 

By hour six, the infected wound that makes up her navel has stopped leaking pus, looks less inflamed.

 

*********

 

By hour eight, there's a pink line like a scar along her breastbone, but no other sign of the scaling Natasha saw there in the gym.

 

*********

 

By hour ten, her navel has closed entirely, pink, healthy and human.

 

*********

 

"I think it's safe to finally come out and say it worked," says Betty, somewhere around hour twelve. "She's asleep, her body is healing itself at an accelerated rate – much the way Steve's does – and I'm seeing a seventy–five per cent drop in damaged cells in the latest samples."

"So it worked," says Steve, and sighs in relief. "Holy Mary Mother of God."

He so rarely swears, it makes Betty blink. Then she smiles. "Yeah, I guess so. Go on, go wake Nat and Bucky, give 'em the good news."

He glances at her; she laughs. As he leaves Betty wanders over to the couch and drops, groaning, into Bruce's lap. He shifts her enough to be comfortable and kicks at Tony to move his legs, who does so.

"Kings of the lab," he says. " _Kings. Of. The. Lab_."

Betty laughs quietly.

"Think it's permanent?" Tony asks.

Bruce sighs. "Probably not," he says quietly.

Tony rolls his head to the side without lifting it off the back of the couch. He doesn't even look surprised.

"I think it's coincidence," says Bruce, still quiet: as though someone could hear if he speaks too loudly. "I think, to be honest, that Ksenia and Yuri both received a dose that was slightly different to Nat's – maybe higher, maybe modified. And it did _that_ to them. Bucky says they were given numbers. Natasha was five. Alexei was nine. Ksenia was twenty–two. Yuri was thirty–one."

Tony purses his mouth, thoughtful. "The lower the number, the closer the dosage was to the serum that Bucky and Steve were given?"

"It makes sense," says Betty. "What happened to the others?"

"One through five, nine, eleven and twenty–one were Successfuls," says Bruce. "Plus Ksenia, plus Yuri. The others... weren't. All Bucky knew was that they'd died in the course of the treatment. Now I think we might know how."

Horrifically.

"How many?"

"In total? Forty, maybe fifty. The programme was halted because the numbers didn't match."

"Twenty per cent success rate, not good enough," says Tony. "Fuck."

There didn't, on the whole, appear to be anything either Bruce or Betty could add to that.

 

*********

 

Ksenia sleeps for another twenty–four hours. Bruce, Betty and Tony do the same thing, wrung out and exhausted. Pepper chews Fury out for setting foot in the Tower, let alone trying to see them. The other Avengers begin, inch by inch, to relax.

Except for Clint. Natasha watches him as he waits, seeing the tension none of the others do; she knows the twitch of his fingers when he's longing for a bow, the way he walks when he's suppressing a need to lash out and start – or finish – a fight. She slumps on the couch next to James and catches Clint's eye: he arches his eyebrows, she jerks her chin at him, he shakes his head.

 _Under control_.

"OK," she says, so tired – so relieved – she speaks the words aloud instead of merely thinking them, and closes her eyes against James's shoulder.

 

*********

 

It's four–seventeen a.m. when Jarvis says, "Mr Stark," and Tony rolls over, muttering to himself. Clint takes the vents; they're nice vents, he likes them. Alexei takes the elevator, walks into the lab as cool as you please and switches the computer on. He knows the password, has seen Tony type it in before. Stark is a genius, but he is a trusting genius, and that makes him a fool.

While the data is copying onto the USB stick Alexei brought with him he pads silently through the lab to Ksenia's alcove, stands by her bedside.

"Now whatever you do," he murmurs to her, "don't wake up."

He barely gets past laying the needle on her skin before something sharp and metal traces, lightly, over his own temple.

"You know," says Clint Barton gently, "I've always wondered what the bow–and–arrow equivalent of shooting someone at point blank range would look like."

Alexei freezes.

"Put the syringe down."

He drops it; it clatters on the floor. Ksenia does not wake.

"According to Bruce she'll be under for a while yet."

"I see."

"Step away from her? Come along. That's it."

They move backwards, into the main lab area.

"Stark let me guess his password."

"Overeager, but not stupid," says Stark's voice. He moves into Alexei's line of vision, wearing sleep pants and a t–shirt, and for the first time since meeting him, Alexei sees him something close to naked; sees, very clearly, the lights embedded in his chest, shining through the thin fabric.

He's not stupid.

"That's how you power the suit!"

Stark gives him a very slow and very dry standing ovation.

"A mechanical heart. No wonder Ross is afraid of you."

Thin sharp smile. "Is he?"

Alexei pauses to think about this. "Actually, I don't know. I assumed it. He was certainly most anxious to get his hands on your research."

"Is Ksenia part of this?"

Alexei shrugs. "Ksenia... I knew she was afraid, I knew she would bungle it. I could see it in her face. She’s grown weak, lost her way. But I could use it. I went to Ross myself, offered him a second chance."

"Is Blonsky still alive?"

He frowns, which makes Stark frown right back at him. "Who?"

"He doesn't know," says Stark. "Doesn't really matter. Ross wants our cure either way. Yes?"

"I assume so," says Alexei coolly.

"And," says Barton softly, "Yuri?"

For the first time, Alexei's composure shakes. "Yuri was my friend," he says. "That much was true. But he is dead now – he's been dead for months, in truth, there was nothing left of him in that thing –"

Stark is not a fool, and something in him is quite as ruthless as Alexei himself: he follows the thought to its logical conclusion without any trouble. "You _kept_ him like that? To use him, to take us in?"

Shrug again. "There was nothing," he says, "of my friend left in that – creature."

"I think," Barton says, voice shaking, "this is the point where I put an arrow through your skull."

Alexei spins with a speed the other two cannot match, ducks and hits Barton full in the chest; he falls back with a strangled cry, ridiculously outdated weapons falling, Alexei is sure he's cracked a rib or two. He snatches the arrow and turns back to Stark, who has a gun now or all along but who falls back when Alexei uses the arrow to stab at him – knock the gun away, punch him viciously in the face – who knows what that contraption in his chest is made of, Alexei has no desire to break his hand on it. Stark falls as well, bleeding and cursing, Barton is scrambling upright but Alexei is faster, how long will it take them to learn he will always be faster, grabs the USB stick on his way past and out of the door, slide around the corner heading for the elevator and walks right into Thor's fist.

 _Ouch_.

 

*********

 

Every time Phil comes over here the first thing he does is spend several minutes taking in the damage and feeling a bit like the straight man in a screwball comic crime–caper, surveying the results of his teammates' Wacky Plans.

Alexei's got bruises even the serum will take a while to heal. He's also pumped full of enough tranquiliser to take down a herd of elephants. They based the dose on what they usually give Natasha. He's still twitching.

"So you knew," Phil says, glaring at Clint.

"I _suspected_ ," Clint corrects him cheerfully, "because Ross was a little too eager to talk and a little too afraid–looking. And then Tony came up with the whole 'wait quietly and see' plan, which struck me as a really good one, because a) waiting quietly, a talent of mine, and b) I basically got a week off."

Phil sighs. Most of the others are grinning.

"Next time," says Betty, " _I'll_ go talk to him."

"He'd have you kidnapped and locked up," says Bruce.

"Maybe. I'm getting increasingly fond of that old patricide notion, to tell you the truth." She's got her arms crossed, looks close to tapping her foot in annoyance.

Phil feels like tapping his foot in annoyance himself. "And Ksenia –"

"In on it!" Tony says defiantly.

"Tony, put your head back," says Pepper. She's bending over him with a wad of bloodstained tissues in her hand, looking every bit as exasperated as both Phil and Betty feel. Unlike most of the others, she's actually dressed, though barefoot.

"Was not," says Clint. "Way too scared. Genuinely scared. She wanted to be cured. I don't know what the fuck Alexei wanted."

Bucky grunts. "World domination," he says. "I hate to be the smug bastard who goes around saying I told you so all the time, but, you know, I told you so." This is directed at Steve specifically, who scrubs a hand through his hair – it's one of an increasing number of times Phil has seen Captain America with untidy hair, overexposure to Tony's permanent tousle has apparently made him lose that combed–forties thing – and says, "Yeah, I guess you did."

Natasha's tucked into an armchair, feet curled beneath her like a sleepy child. "You didn't tell me," she says.

Bucky shrugs. "I've just never trusted him."

She frowns. "I've never trusted any of them. What –"

"Kids," says Phil, because he's been dragged out of bed at quarter to five in the morning and made to watch while a Russian super–spy assassin was injected with elephant tranquiliser and Tony Stark had the nosebleed of the ages – he hopes, feeling gloomily vicious, that it's broken – and Clint's ribs were bandaged and Thor dropped Mjölnir on Alexei's chest in place of, you know, actual restraints, "let's not. If you make me sit through one of your giant Avenger snark–sessions that represent some messed–up code for expressing open affection written by and for emotionally constipated super–heroes I will shoot the coffee machine and bask in your screams."

Blissful, beautiful silence. The Avengers exchange nervous looks; Pepper is grinning.

Then: "It's not affection," Tony says, sounding affronted, "it's genuine loathing –" and Phil rounds on him, snarling, as the elevator pings, opening to reveal Maria Hill.

"You people are horrific," she says, "can't you ever have something like this happen during daytime hours? Fury's on his way over. Here, I brought bagels. Please tell me someone's snapped a picture of Tony fucking Stark in his pyjamas with a wad of tissues _stuffed up his_ _nose_."

Tony flips her off.

 

*********

 

Ksenia wakes to a pleasant languor and a dull ache in her bones – an oddly good ache, as if she had been doing something strenuous she nevertheless enjoyed. Steve is there; he helps her sit up, gulp water through a straw. He has a gun on him.

Ksenia feels more awake than she has for weeks, maybe months: smarter, sharper, quicker.

"Alexei," she says.

"Went to Ross."

"The fool." She meets his eyes steadily. "I didn't know."

Steve pauses. She can hear her own heartbeat as he looks at her, feel the blood rushing through her veins, imagines it as a river with a strong current. She feels powerful, made new, wiped clean of old sins and old fears; she could run for miles, jump a building, fight an army on her own. She's smiling like an idiot with the joy of it.

"I believe you," Steve says. He smiles then too. "I trust you, after all."

Ksenia laughs. "Then you're a fool as well," she says, only distantly aware that she sounds fond, teasing, affectionate; only distantly aware that she likes the sound of her own voice like this.

 

*********

 

"My suggestion," says Maria, "would be to put it in the reports that Ksenia died; either the treatment didn't work or Alexei killed her. Let that news reach Ross. Then destroy all the research you've got, or bury it in a place you can guarantee no one will ever get to."

Natasha shakes her head. "As long as Tony, Bruce and Betty are alive there's always the possibility someone will get to it."

"True."

"What does Fury say?"

Maria purses her lips. "That he'll abide by your decision – you the Avengers that is. I don't think he wants the serum, even Bruce and Tony's diluted version, floating around. He's as wary of our own bosses as he is of the other side. Better to bury it all again."

Natasha nods. "Sensible."

"This time."

 

*********

 

Ksenia has forgotten who suggested the motorbike, but she loves it.

"You could stay," Steve says. "We'd make it work. It would probably be safest."

"It probably would," Ksenia agrees. "But I don't want to be kept safe. I don't think, right now, that I could take that."

"I understand," he says. "Bruce told you there's no guarantee how long the cure will last, if it even does."

"He did. If the mutations come back, I'll... be back." She shrugs.

"Sure." He's smiling.

"Thank you," she says. "For the cure. And the trust."

"You're very welcome."

She nods. They shake hands. It's not the first time she's touched him, but she feels the strength in his hands now, the greater warmth in his skin compared to normal people, the quicker beat of the blood in his veins that matches her own. All Ksenia's senses have cleared, as though she'd been going through the world with a blanket flung over her thoughts, her mind, muffling her entire being.

"Be well," he says.

"You too," she says. "Give Natalia... give Nat and Bucky my regards."

His smile gets wider, just a bit. "I will."

She pauses on the edge of leaving, leg swung over the bike, sunglasses in her hand. "I'm sorry about your Peggy," she says. Steve doesn't deserve that grief in his life.

"Thank you," he says. "Whatever happened, though, I'm glad – glad we got even that much time."

Ksenia nods again, smiling herself; she knows encouragement when she hears it. He stands in the garage until she's out and gone into the grey New York autumn, sliding into traffic and away.

And that’s it, she’s gone: so easily, so quickly, without so much as a goodbye. The city swallows her up and the Tower disappears behind her; she’s alone again, and safe, and _awake_.

(In more ways than one.)

She thinks she might go back to Rio. She spent six months there ten years ago and enjoyed herself so much it scared her; that was why she left.

Looking back on it, that was a stupid thing to do.

 

*********

 

Steve heads back inside once the motorbike’s vanished. Bucky is waiting for him in the elevator, arms crossed over his chest; he taps his fingers against his biceps, and Steve remembers his own hands there, gripping tight to stop them shaking, and the spill of Tasha’s hair across his vision. He smiles.

“Hey.”

“Hey. She off?”

“Without a hitch.”

“Good.”

Silence then. They stand side by side against the back wall, Steve’s hands in his pockets, Bucky’s feet apart like he’s balanced for a fight; he’s always stood like that, even when they were boys. The elevator runs upwards smoothly, lights glinting on and off as they rush past floors of labs and offices and meeting rooms.

Then, simultaneously, they say, “You OK?” and laugh at each other, shoulders touching.

Yeah.

 

 

*********

*********

*********

 

 

When Alexei wakes up he is lying on the floor. The Widow kneels beside him.

"Nice," she says. "Smooth. Too smooth. You, grieving? Gimme a break."

"You – what –"

"You," says the Widow, and her voice is flat and her eyes dead; there's no trace here of the woman called Natasha who speaks with an American accent and laughs with her friends and kisses the Winter Soldier openly in the halls of a place that's at the heart of everything she was brought up to oppose, to _despise_ , "are about to make a nice little escape attempt, Alexei. You won't survive it. Your body will be burned as Yuri's was, and that will be that as far as SHIELD is concerned."

He laughs at her. "I don't think so. I'm quite comfortable, actually."

Widow does smile now, viciously amused. "Not for much longer," she says. Holds an empty syringe into his line of view. "Ksenia's blood."

There is, he realises, an ache in his left elbow. Alexei's breath catches. "No –"

"From before the cure. I don’t know if it’s actually _infectious_ , but I’m going to have fun finding out."

"You _bitch_ –"

"Furthermore, General Ross is on his way. Sounds like someone told him there was a new test subject on the market."

He is not afraid. He will not show fear. He will not. He will not.

He is shaking.

"You truly have betrayed everything you are, haven't you? Your cause, your country, your comrades. _Everything_."

Widow's turn to laugh at him. "What cause do you think I ever had? Communism?"

He strains against whatever's holding him at wrist and ankles and chest; he cannot even see that much. "It could still work!"

"I don't want it to work," says Widow. "Were you going to go home to Moscow in triumph, brandishing the perfected serum, the saviour bringing Mother Russia the means to create an Army who would not fail as the Red one did?"

Alexei drags at his bonds again, snarls at her, and this time her laughter is longer and louder, almost genuine. "Oh my God, you were."

"So this is the way America deals with its enemies," he snaps. "Or is that SHIELD, I cannot tell the difference. You and your friends like to talk about honour and mercy –"

"No," says the Widow. It occurs to Alexei at last that they are speaking Russian; he hadn't even noticed before. "Well, yeah, we do, and we talk about choices and personal responsibility and atoning for your mistakes when we're not throwing popcorn at Stallone movies and Netflixing _Xena the Warrior Princess_. But right now, Alexei, my friends are under the impression that you're about to be sunk in stasis for a very, very long time, and that you won't be harmed, though you might never wake up. This is for _me_."

He spits at her. She avoids it easily. "I wondered if he told you. It was quite a show, you know, I'd only come back to the locker rooms for a glove, and there you were, fucking like rabbits – you were begging for it, as I recall – and he begged too, when they put the needle in him and took his memories out, he begged for _you_ –"

She doesn't even hit him. She loosens his bonds instead. He swears at her, curses, threatens, shouts about the way the Soldier screamed when they injected him, how you could see the stuff moving through the veins under his skin, how it clawed through him till he couldn't breathe – but she doesn't look at him, and she doesn't respond; she stands up, and she walks to the door, and she leaves, and does not lock him in.

The syringe is lying on the floor by his elbow – his pricked, aching elbow. Almost he thinks he can see the scaling start, his skin begin to grey. Alexei stands up when his restraints finally give way, shaking, furious, terrified.

Whatever mutation took Ksenia and Yuri, he has been given it. And General Ross is on his way.

He leaves the cell, as she said he would.

Once outside, irrationally, he hopes it's Barton who kills him.

 

 

 

 


End file.
